“The humanitarian catastrophe that we are witnessing in Gaza must end now,” the governments of Britain, France and Germany said in a joint statement on Friday. The severity of the humanitarian crisis over 21 months of grinding war has led some Western nations once sympathetic to Israel’s actions in Gaza to shift their stance toward the entrenched conflict. On Thursday, France said it would soon recognize an independent State of Palestine, adding its name to a growing list of European countries to do so. Nearly one in three people in the territory is not eating for days at a time, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program. The Gaza health authorities say that acute malnutrition is rising and that children have died.
